Bible scholars have divided the entire span of time from creation to the final judgment (Genesis to Revelation) into seven distinct eras or covenants:
1. Innocence,
2. Conscience,
3. Human Government,
4. Promise
5. Law
6. Grace
7. Millennial Kingdom.
In each covenant, God reveals more about Himself and how to please Him by making a covenant (contract) with man. In each covenant, God specifies His own contractual obligations as well as man's contractual obligations. Throughout the Bible, God has consistently honored his covenant obligations while man has repeatedly failed to comply with his. Man's failure ends in divine judgment, after which God enters into a new covenant with man. Tracing God's activity through each covenant and having an understanding of the provisions of each covenant, is a valuable tool in "rightly dividing the word of God.
Innocence
When God first created Adam and Eve, they were without sin and enjoyed direct fellowship with Him. Man's responsibilities under God's first covenant was to
1. maintain their fellowship with Him
2. tend the garden
3. have many children
4. fill the earth
5. obey God's command not to eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.
Man's failure led to judgment: men would now have to work hard tilling the ground to make a living, women would have to suffer during childbirth, and their sin caused death to enter the world and forced a separation from God.
Covenant Obligations:
Genesis 1:28 Be fruitful, have many children and rule over God's creation.
Genesis 2:15 Take care of the Garden of Eden.
Genesis 2:16-17 Do not eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.
Man's failure ends in judgment:
Genesis 3:14 Judgment on the Serpent.
Genesis 3:15 Judgment on Satan and the Promise of the Messiah.
Genesis 3:16 Judgment on the Woman.
Genesis 3:17 Judgment on the Man
